Editing Self-help (section)

==The market==
{{see also|Self-help book}}
Group and corporate attempts to help people help themselves have created a self-help marketplace, with [[Large Group Awareness Training]]s (LGATs)<ref>{{Cite book | last = Coon | first = Dennis | title = Psychology: A Journey | publisher = Thomson Wadsworth | year = 2004 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/psychologyjourne00coon/page/520 520], 528, 538 | url = https://archive.org/details/psychologyjourne00coon/page/52  | ISBN = 978-0-534-63264-9 | quote = ...programs that claim to increase self-awareness and facilitate constructive personal change. }}</ref> and [[psychotherapy]] systems represented. These offer more-or-less prepackaged solutions to instruct people seeking their betterment,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Singer |first=Margaret Thaler |title=Cults in our midst |date=2003 |publisher=Jossey-Bass |isbn=978-0-7879-6741-3 |edition=Revised |location=San Francisco, CA |pages=193}}</ref><ref>Denison, Charles Wayne. ''The children ofest: A study of the experience and perceived effects of a large group awareness training (The Forum)''. University of Denver, 1994. p. 48.</ref> just as "the literature of self-improvement directs the reader to familiar frameworks... what the French {{lang|fr|[[fin de siècle]]}} social theorist [[Gabriel Tarde]] called 'the grooves of borrowed thought'."{{r|McGee|pages=160–62}}

A subgenre of self-help book series exists, such as the [[...for Dummies|'' for Dummies'' guides]] and ''[[The Complete Idiot's Guide to...]]'', that are varieties of [[How To (disambiguation)|how-to book]]s.

=== Statistics ===
At the start of the 21st century, "the self-improvement industry, inclusive of books, seminars, audio and video products, and personal coaching, [was] said to constitute a 2.48-billion dollars-a-year industry"{{r|McGee|page=11}} in the United States alone. By 2006, research firm Marketdata estimated the "self-improvement" market in the U.S. as worth more than {{currency|9 billion|usd|passthrough=yes}}—including [[infomercial]]s, [[mail-order catalog]]s, [[holistic]] institutes, books, [[Compact Cassette|audio cassette]]s, [[motivational speaker|motivation-speaker]] seminars, the [[personal coaching]] market, and [[weight loss|weight-loss]] and [[stress management|stress-management]] programs. Market data projected that the total market size would grow to over {{currency|11 billion|usd|passthrough=yes|linked=no}} by 2008.<ref>{{cite press release | title = Self-Improvement Market in U.S. Worth $9.6 Billion | publisher = PRWeb | date = September 21, 2006 | url = http://www.prwebdirect.com/releases/2006/9/prweb440011.php | access-date = 2008-12-18 | quote = Marketdata Enterprises, Inc., a leading independent market research publisher, has released a new 321-page market study entitled: The U.S. Market For Self-Improvement Products & Services. | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://archive.today/20070421220629/http://www.prwebdirect.com/releases/2006/9/prweb440011.php | archive-date = April 21, 2007 }}
</ref> In 2013 [[Kathryn Schulz]] examined "an $11 billion industry".<ref>{{cite news
| title       = The Self in Self-Help: We have no idea what a self is. So how can we fix it?
| first       = Kathryn
| last        = Schulz
| author-link = Kathryn Schulz
| url         = https://nymag.com/health/self-help/2013/schulz-self-searching/
| newspaper   = [[New York (magazine)|New York Magazine]]
| publisher   = New York Media, LLC
| issn        = 0028-7369
| date        = 2013-01-06
| access-date = 2013-01-11
| quote       = We have, however, developed an $11 billion industry dedicated to telling us how to improve our lives.}}</ref>

===Self-help and professional service delivery===
Self-help and mutual-help are very different from—though they may complement—aid by professionals.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Lloyd |first1=R. |title=Modeling community-based, self-help mental health rehabilitation |journal=Australasian Psychiatry |volume=15 |pages=S99–103 |pmid=18027146 |year=2007 |issue=Suppl 1 |doi=10.1080/10398560701701296 |s2cid=7492660 }}</ref>

Conflicts can and do arise on that interface, however, with some professionals considering that, for example, "the twelve-step approach encourages a kind of contemporary version of 19th-century amateurism or enthusiasm in which self-examination and very general social observations are enough to draw rather large conclusions."<ref name=Davis>{{cite book|first=Lennard J.|last=Davis|title=Obsession: A History|location=London|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2008|pages=171|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z5ATMl1uCCcC|url-access=subscription|isbn=9780226137797}}</ref>